Carya Golf Course: Thomson, Perett, & Lobb

[Steve Okula]

Also from Belek, Turkey, a few photos of the Carya Course. I apologize for the lack of narrative, I was on business and in a hurry and just plain slack not writing everything down. These were taken May, 2009. The plantings you see with the black drip irrigation lines  are of heather.

[Norbert P]

 Thanks for the picts, Steve.    Interesting golf-related name that it has . . .   Carya is the genus of Hickory.

Both of these courses you've presented look quite interesting.  What is the golf culture like in Turkey?

[Steve Okula]

The local golf culture is embryonic. 99% of golfers on these courses are foreigners, mainly northern Europeans, Brits, Germans, Swedes, and their ilk.

Up until 1994 there were exactly two golf courses in the country, a little nine holer near Istanbul and another inside the U.S. military base at Incilik, on the south eastern coast. So there simply wasn't any opportunity for people to pick up the game until very recently.

Curiously, they do breed some competent greenkeepers. All the courses are maintained by Turks, and the standard is generally as good as your average resort course in the U.S. There are no schools for this in Turkey, the guys learn English and study abroad.

There are also one or two excellent Turkish construction superintendents there, who have honed their skills doing one project after another for professional architects.

[Mark Chaplin]

The google satallite of the area appears to show several miles of wall to wall courses.

[David_Tepper]

Steve -

"The plantings you see with the black drip irrigation lines  are of heather."

Can heather grow and flourish in the local climate? Isn't it too warm there?

DT

[Tony_Muldoon]

I understrand that GCA's Philip Spogard was the main Architect involved on this one. Hopefully he'll see this and chime in. 


He's now set up his own practice (in Denmark?).


Thanks for the pictures Steve.

Tony

[Steve Okula]

Steve -

"The plantings you see with the black drip irrigation lines  are of heather."

Can heather grow and flourish in the local climate? Isn't it too warm there?

DT

I asked the same question. The superintendent was comfortable with it, claiming the heather was an adapted variety, but I don't remember the name of it now.

[Adam Lawrence]

They propagated over a million heather plants during the construction phase, and a team of local women was planting them all by hand when I was there in October 2008. I was a little dubious about how well they would take, but Philip sent me some pictures a few weeks ago of a carpet of purple heather... rather impressive.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I understrand that GCA's Philip Spogard was the main Architect involved on this one. Hopefully he'll see this and chime in. 


He's now set up his own practice (in Denmark?).


Thanks for the pictures Steve.

Tony

Tony,

This was a TPL course with Tim Lobb as named architect... However, it's safe to say that Philip Spogard did a large chunk of the work, his first course as associate.... Philip graduated as Design Student of the Year from the 2005-2007 EIGCA Diploma course....

He has now taken a dual position as project architect for Jol Golf Design (in Holland) as well as setting up a new firm in partnership with Michiel Van Der Vaart: Spogard Van Der Vaart... He has recently moved back to Denmark and works from there...

He had an article on restoration of the heathlands published in Issue 11 of the Aussie Golf Architecture magazine...